Monsters Under the Bed
by katachresis
Summary: Tsuzuki and Hisoka examine their relationship and come to some disturbing conclusions.
1. nightmares

Tsuzuki/Hisoka. But dark. Seriously. Prepare for creepiness.  
  
What can I say? I have a -passion- for darkening up characters. Now, I'm thinking about expanding this into a full fic, but I don't really know where I'm going with it. Bear with me. ^^  
  
--==--  
  
I was becoming him.  
  
No, that's not true. I wasn't becoming anything. I had always been like this, if I only let myself admit it. And I was nothing like Muraki. Nothing at all.   
  
Muraki never played with other's hearts. Perhaps he found it boring, not enough of a challenge, or even too much of one. He never cared to take someone's emotions and twist them around, play the game of love with his victims.  
  
Hisoka's body in my arms was tiny, fragile. So utterly perfect and breakable. And I hated myself for holding him, for softly kissing his hair. Hated myself with such a ferocity, that it seemed sometimes I would scream.   
  
But I couldn't stop. Didn't really want to. Needed to have someone there... not just -someone-, but someone like Hisoka. Vulnerable. Someone who I could watch break apart in my arms, someone to convince myself that I could still -feel- something, and that I wasn't, at least, as weak as they. Even though I knew I was, had bowed and broken myself before under another's knowing touch, the right words, a harsh caress.  
  
Hisoka was perfect for me. Absolutely perfect, and it both thrilled and scared me. I could lose myself in him, in kissing him, in convincing him, and myself, that I loved him. But always, always the darkness came back, usually when it was like this, him stretched out carelessly in my arms, asleep.   
  
His only flaw was that it was almost impossible to really hide things from him. His weakness, that wonderful emotional sensitivity, so easy to use to convince us both of my pretty little lie, was also his strength. So I had to hide my true feelings, deeper and deeper inside of me.  
  
They came out when he dreamed. And I know what he dreamed about, imprisoned in my arms in the shadows. I knew, even though he never told me, even when he woke up shaking and crying.  
  
He was dreaming that dark, ugly place of my soul, giving it a name, a face that wasn't mine. He gave it Muraki's, and I breathed a sigh of relief and shame.  
  
He dreamt of being pinned to the ground, used, fucked until he was raw, and his voice was long since screamed away. And he put it where he believed it belonged - in the past, and never spoke about it, even to me. But I knew what was behind his tired, bruised eyes, and I knew that it wasn't the past that haunted him. It was the present.   
  
And I hated myself, and I wanted to throw up when I thought about it. But I couldn't stop. Couldn't stop touching him, torturing him night after night, as he shuddered and cried in my arms, clung to me when he woke up, never realizing that -I- was the reason he was crying in the first place.  
  
He said he loved me. That I was human, that he -needed- me. But it wasn't true, not any of it. How could he love me? I was a monster, disgusting and foul and vile, worse than his murderer. He thought he needed me. What he really needed was to realize what I was and run away. He wasn't safe with me. But he wouldn't realize the truth, denying what his dreams told him, and I wouldn't tell him, carefully locking it away in the deepest corners of my heart.  
  
When I told him "I love you," he believed it. He didn't hear what I really felt, because he needed the illusion almost as much as I did.   
  
I was worse than Muraki, who was at least human. I was a demon. I knew I would hurt him, tear him apart from the inside, so that he could never be whole again. It didn't give me more than a moment's pause.  
  
Because, you see, part of me hated him, almost much as I hated myself. Hated the way he could just -move on-, even after everything that had happened in his life, and I was stuck, unable to find my way out.   
  
And I hated the way he was so damned pretty -- pure and innocent, fresh. So unlike me. And I loathed the way he could soften his glares into genuine, shy smiles, when mine were always such a mask, and the way he could fall so -easily- into love, even though he had never had the chance to even love his family. And the way he looked at me, so clearly, fearlessly.  
  
After the beginning, he never flinched, not even knowing my past, or how much blood stained my hands (far more than Muraki's) or when he held me as I poured out my self-loathing. And he loved me. How could he love me? I was disgusting. He must be disgusting too, to love something like me.  
  
And I wanted to -kill- him when he first shyly whispered those words to me, even though I knew they were coming, had seem them building for weeks, past all his insecurity and fear, and wanted to kiss him and hold him and never let him escape. 


	2. boogeymen

Part two. ^^ Hisoka's side of the story. Still working out whether or not I want this to be a longer fic... I'm kicking a few ideas around, to see if they'd actually work or not. XD; If I do continue, however, the style will change -- this isn't a single-character-centric fic. ^.^  
  
Beta props to Catie and Colin. Thank you loves! :3  
  
--==--  
  
As a child, I had cultivated an excellent imagination. It was my escape, when things started to get too ugly, too painful for me to bear.   
  
I was never sure if this was a blessing or a curse. After all, it's what allowed Muraki to entrap me so effectively. It's what made me believe for a moment that in death I could have something like a normal life.   
  
It's not a very big leap to go from deluding yourself to deluding others.   
  
Tsuzuki. He was the only one who made me feel safe, needed - even for a moment. It was something I latched onto, desperately, -knowing- it couldn't last, but needing it to anyway. Needing to believe in it, to convince myself that I could still feel an emotion that wasn't someone else's.  
  
But even though I told him I loved him, it was a lie, told in an attempt to seal the illusion, make it secure.  
  
It was the only lie I ever really told him. The rest - he read into my actions, my words, his paranoia creating meanings that weren't there. Tsuzuki was always like that, you know. A simple "stay with me" turned into forever, became the definition of his entire life.   
  
It was stifling. And though I always smiled at him, I could never meet his eyes. I suppose he thought it was embarrassment, shyness.   
  
It couldn't have been guilt.   
  
And who knows? Maybe I did love him, in some strange way. I'm not so jaded to say that it isn't a possibility, but the games I played with him weren't what one does to someone they love.   
  
I pushed him, made him hurt and cry and laugh and love me, to just prove to myself that it could be done, that Tsuzuki could be controlled, that I could have the power in at least one of my relationships.  
  
Selfish. I knew that it was cruel and self-centered and that it would only hurt him in the end, make him just a bit more unstable, push him farther over that edge that he perched so shakily on already. I didn't care.  
  
We played the game of lovers well. Everyone was fooled, even Tsuzuki, though I knew he had doubts that whispered to him, to us both.  
  
He was convinced that he was taking advantage of poor, innocent, perfect little me, especially in the beginning, and it took more careful manipulation than I had realized I was capable of to overcome his reservations.  
  
Sex wasn't this big, earth-shattering thing for us. It was simply something we did to convince the other that this was real, a farce that we played night after night.  
  
It was too gentle. Tsuzuki always touched me as if I was this fragile -thing- that he didn't want to break, for fear of a scolding. His gentleness wasn't genuine, and it grated on me. It wasn't me he wanted to protect - it was himself.   
  
At least Muraki was honest with who he was and what he wanted.   
  
That thought kept sneaking in, haunting me. As if it were preferable to be raped than to be in a relationship built on lies, neither party truly caring for the other.  
  
Or even... to -be- the rapist.   
  
Perhaps, in a way, it was true - there was a straightforward, brutal honesty about the way Muraki treated people that was seductive in its simplicity. With him, there were no lies, no manipulation games. He simply took what he wanted, and was on his way.  
  
With Tsuzuki, there was this sense... this surety that the game would be played out over decades... centuries even. The more I thought about it, the more it left me cold.  
  
I was trapped, and I hated it. After a while, I couldn't even figure out why I stayed, except that it was easier than trying to leave, to disentangle myself from the prison of lies we had woven together.   
  
Maybe I was scared - of what I had become, of hurting someone else. Of being the final thing that gave Tsuzuki a convenient excuse to finally finish his complete mental breakdown. 


End file.
